Welcome to BEMELSA News

Our Medical Campaigns have been going really well. In May we focused on providing medical attention to our clients that would otherwise have very limited access to medical professionals. We had a gynocologist, a dentist, a general doctor, and a pharmacist in attendance taking appointments. We provided workshops on issues of the utmost importance in our area such as diarrhea, HIV/AIDS prevention, nutrition, and proper dental care.  In June we had our bi-monthly prevention campain focused on Healthy Lifestyles. Our participants took workshops on exercise, water filtration, recycling, and Yoga!!

We have a new dance instructor in addition to Justin, who continues to teach Afro-Baile. The new instructor is teaching other traditional type of dances such as Saya and the Maranara!  He comes on Saturday afternoons and Justin continues to bring his drummer and instruct on Tuesdays.

We have a new Social Worker on staff now. Milagros is amazing and is really helping to get our programs more solid and consistent.  A mathematics instructor comes two times a week and does mathematics reinforcement for the younger and the older children. We have a communications instructor once a week who is teaching grammer and reinforcing reading and writing concepts. In addition we have an art teacher for the children as well.  They just finished making little boxes that are darling.  In our push to really enforce the importance of education and strengthen their experiences we are requiring that our children come to 2 classes a week in addition to every medical campaign.  They are catching on!!  I just hope that they see why we are doing this!

Trevor, our longtime volunteer left to go to graduate school. The kids miss him and had a going away party for him.  They are still asking about him and some are pretty sad that he won't be back! We wish Trevor a great experience in graduate school.

Bemelsa has brought on a development professional to help us raise funds for continued growth and... well, further development. Ashley Scheve is working hard to connect us to potential donors as well as creating a greater exposure for our organization.   We are very close to making it possible for donations and a tax-write off for anyone who wants to donate!

 

Of course many thanks are in order!! Thank you to Kevin Kreiz of Blink Tank Studios for continuing to help us develop and improve our exposure. Kevin is currently working with me to create a more interactive and exciting website. It should be up and operating soon!!  On my trip back to the United States in July I received more donations of books from Mary Bryant.  The kids are devouring them of course.